Stephen Toope to receive honorary doctorate from McGill University

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On Thursday, June 1, during the Faculty of Law’s Spring 2017 Convocation Ceremony, Professor Stephen J. Toope, O.C., BCL’83, LLB’83, will be awarded a Doctor of Laws degree, honoris causa, and will give the commencement address.

Stephen Toope is a thoughtful and valued voice in higher education and international law. As Dean of Law at McGill University and as President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of British Columbia, he led curriculum renewal in legal education and advanced post-secondary research and innovation. In the early 2000s, he was the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation’s first president and chief executive officer. A respected legal scholar and authority in human rights, Toope is sought after for his expertise by social justice organizations and governments around the world. He is presently the Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and also serves as President of the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. He will be taking over as the next Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in October 2017.

“We are extraordinarily proud of Stephen Toope’s accomplishments since leaving McGill and honoured to welcome him back before he heads off to Cambridge,” said Dean Robert Leckey. “It’s a special pleasure for me since he was my Dean when I began studying at McGill and I was a scholar under his tenure at the Trudeau Foundation.”

Professor Toope publishes in leading international journals on international dispute resolution, international environmental law, human rights, the use of force, and international legal theory, and has lectured at leading universities around the globe. His book with Professor Jutta Brunnée, Legitimacy and Legality in International Law: An Interactional Account, was winner of the American Society of International Law’s 2011 Certificate of Merit for Creative Scholarship.